How does Hawthorne want us to react to Hester's community? How are the Puritans and their town portrayed? Give examples to support your answer. How do you feel about how Hester handles herself in the first chapters? Do you admire her, feel sorry for her, or what? Why? Is Hawthorne making any more universal statements about how communities treat individuals?
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I think the society is portrayed as ridiculing of what doesn't go in accordance to what they as Puritans believe. They are uniform thoughout in appearance, but it goes deeper than that, each having their unknown secret. And when Hester's adultery is revealed, the community acts as if no such thing has ever been contemplated and/or acted upon by an individual present.
Reading on we see how Hester had to sew intricate designs yada yada yada for some of the people in the town. They treat her like an outcasdt because of what she had done, but since she has something they want, they are able to look past it to get whatever it is they want.
Hester's community is cruel toward Hester and Pearl. The children are just as bad as their parents. They even go so far as to throw mud at Hester and Pearl. The community looks down on Hester and sees her as the most evil and crazy person they have ever seen. The Puritains are very simple and have strict religious views. Many things that Hester and Pearl have/do are completely against the Puritain views. For example, Pearl's red dress adorned with gold is too flashy.
I think Hester controlled her emotions very well in the first chapter. The only thing I questioned was why was her state of mind so calm and careless? She showed no emotion, and she felt no emotion either. Normally a character is dying inside but not showing it on the outside.
The community is very cruel acting and mean toward Hester. All they do is mock Hester even if they were very close to her. The ones who were close to her could not believe what she had done and they seemed to have no sympathy for her nor did they care what was happening to her. It seems as if you have to go along with the crowd or you will be mocked as well. The Puritans seem to have very strong feelings about their religion and they seem to be very strict. I think within the first couple of chapters Hester handles herself very well. She does not seem to have much emotion. She hides it all very well if she is upset. I feel bad for her, but I also admire her for the self-confidence she seems to have in herself. She just allows them to mock her and goes about it like it is part of everyday life.
I think that the community is portrayed in a way where Hawthorne is very critical of the Hypocrisy of Puritan society. He aims to point out there harsh judgments when their beliefs tell them that God is the only Judge. The entire first chapter of the novel questions the need of jail in a puritan society. The people f the community look down upon Hester. It seems that the older people in the town are more critical of her than the younger people. When Hester is on the stage in public an elderly person makes a comment about how disgusting and vile she is and is responded to by a younger person saying it is unnecessary to make those comments. Hawthorne made sure to include the age difference between the two comments indicating a lower level of understanding and forgiveness in the older people of the village. I admire Hester in her strength of character. Hawthorne's message is not specific to Puritans he is addressing a universal image of the harshness and hypocritical nature of society.
Haha the image is funny. Anyways, I immediately had bad feelings about Hester's community when Hawthorne describes the heavy oak door studded with iron spikes and the dreary-looking people gathering outside. Not only does the society condemn her for being an adulteress, and look down upon her and her illegitimate child, but they even criticize the ornateness of her scarlet letter "A". In the marketplace, everyone taunts Hester. The first couple of chapters show how quickly Hester was ostracized from her community. Because Pearl is so close to her mother, she is subjected to the townspeople's taunts, and becomes withdrawn as well. A group of children go as far as to try to fling mud at them. Obviously adultery is not a good thing, but Pearl and her mother do not deserve such cruel and barbaric treatment. I admire both Hester's and Pearl's confidence and courage to deal with their daily doses of insults and stares. However, I must also agree with nyletak08, how was Hester capable of achieving such great carelessness and lack of emotion when she was presented in front of society as something to look so greatly down upon?
I think Hawthorne wants us to react to Hester's community with dislike. Puritans are portrayed to hurt anyone who disobeys God no matter how much they repent and feel horrible about it. I feel sorry for Hester. She made one mistake because he husband never showed up and she got lonely, and everyone is mad at her. She deserves to be forgiven and to live her life normally and raise Pearl normally.
Hawthorne wants us to dislike Hester's community because of the manner in which they treat Hester and her daughter. The community refuses to take into account the background information of the situation: why Hester did what she did, if Hester learned from her experience, and Hester's intent by making the mistake. Instead, they completely disregard her feelings as a person, mock her, taunt her daughter, and look down on her in every way. For example, many people refuse to talk to her because of the mistake that she has made. I think that Hester handled the situation extremely well, by accepting that she had made a mistake and not acting out. If she had begun to yell, cry, or beg for forgiveness, as many people may have, she could have made the situation worse. Instead, she remains calm, which I admire. I pity Hester, because I understand what it is like to make a mistake that deeply affected me, which I wish I could take back. Although I cannot imagine what it would be like to be shunned from my society because of it, I think that in most cases people deserve second chances. Hawthorne may me making a universal statment about how communities often fail to look beyond what a person has done instead of looking deeper into their intentions and feelings.
Hawthorne does not want us to like Hester's community. They are portayed as a crowd of dreary looking people, who act cruely toward Hester and Pearl. They automatically judge her without ever thinking of what could have made her act they way she did, or what she could have been affected by in her past to influence her decisions. The crowd shows no sympathy at all, and is quick to judge and ridicule. By doing so the Puritans contradict their own beliefs by being so quick to judge Hester, and also believing and preaching that God is their only Judge in life. Hester takes their redicule quitely rather than lashing back out at the crowd, or breaking down crying and begging for mercy. She remains strong and she endures their redicule and harsh judgements. I feel that by keeping her composure under such circumstances is admirable, and honorable. I admire her, and feel sorry for her at the same time due to the crowds torment and the situation she is stuck in. On a universal scale Hawthorne could be relating the Puritan society to how communities treat individuals in the sense that they all are extremely judgemental and stereotypical. People make assumptions about other people without even knowing the person or their intentions for anything they have done. People are too quick to judge and to make the assumption that they know a person and have a right to ridicule them or personally judge their actions without knowing their intent or motive.
I think that the picture is very funny, and depicts how Hawthorne feels about here letter. Hester is trying to make us see that she doesn't like haveing the letter A imposed upon her, she feels great shame for what she has commited. Both Hester and her daughter Pearl are social outcasts in there society, continually being ridiculed and judge for the A that she wears upon her chest. In the town Hester works as a seamstress, and everyone appriciates her work. They are able to look past what she has done enough to get the cloths that they want and nothing more. The children and other women of the society view Hester and Pearl as moraly wrong.
Hawthorne wants us to realize the cruelity of the community towards Hester, and even her daughter, Pearl. The townspeople criticize and mock her. The Puritans are portrayed as having strict views on religion and if anything goes against their views, that person or people are portrayed as wrong. I admire Hester's courage in the first chapters and how she controls her emotions. I do feel sorry for her, but realize also that what she did was wrong. Hawthorne is showing that communities are very hypocritical in their judgements.
nyletak -- She is definitely described as distressed but she refuses to who it. Is that because she is prideful or because she acknowledges that she's done something wrong? Think about this as you continue to read. At times it seems as if it's the former and at other times, it seems to be the latter.
bobdole --Some good observations. I'm not so sure he's questioning the need for a prison and simply observing that it is one of the first things that the Puritans build in their community. Is he criticizing the Puritans as overly concerned with crime and punishment or simply making an observation that humans need to be controlled and will inevitably commit crimes? Age and beauty is also a factor in how harsh the women judge Hester. The young, pretty one is much more sympathetic. Is Hawthorne saying old ugly women are nasty? Or is he using the outward appearance of the individual to represent her inward state? Pay attention to this as you continue to read --
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